Digital Commons Network^™

Comparing Check-All And Forced-Choice Question Formats In Web Surveys, Jolene D. Smyth, Don A. Dillman, Leah Melani Christian, Michael J. Stern

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

For survey researchers, it is common practice to use the check-all question format in Web and mail surveys but to convert to the forced-choice question format in telephone surveys. The assumption underlying this practice is that respondents will answer the two formats similarly. In this research note we report results from 16 experimental comparisons in two Web surveys and a paper survey conducted in 2002 and 2003 that test whether the check-all and forced-choice formats produce similar results. In all 16 comparisons, we find that the two question formats do not perform similarly; respondents endorse more options and take longer …

Bio-Bibliography: John Barron Mays (1914-1987), Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

John Barron Mays developed a humane sociological perspective with multiple roots, including formal training in English, firsthand experience in a settlement house, a distinguished university professorship in sociology, and lifelong work as an active poet. Mays’ felicitous professional publications often spoke not only to university colleagues but also to constituencies beyond the halls of academe on a series of interrelated topics, including adolescence, criminology, education, urban life, and poetry.

Bio-Bibliography: William Clark Gordon (1865-1936), Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

William Clark Gordon was a clergyman and an early theorist of the relationships between literature and sociology. He earned a Ph.D. in the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1899 where he majored — within the School’s own Department of Sociology — in social institutions. As such, he completed his doctorate during the first full decade of Chicago’s pioneering sociological project — a fact noted but misattributed by Robert E. L. Faris (1967) to work in the University’s Department of Sociology in the Graduate School of Arts and Literature (Hill 2005). As a practicing clergyman, Gordon’s professional attentions focused on …

Nebraska Sociology On The Ground: A Souvenir Booklet To Accompany An Historical Walking Tour Of Faces And Places On The Lincoln Campus, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This 1-hour and 15-minute walking tour leaves promptly from the Nebraska Undergraduate Sociology Symposium (NUSS), Regency Suite, Room C, in the UNL Nebraska Union, on the City Campus. The tour includes eight locales of sociological interest (see map on the last page of this booklet) and features brief pauses at the Nebraska State Historical Society and the UNL University Archives. The first 15 participants receive this printed souvenir tour guide and related handouts. The tour will be conducted regardless of weather (rain, snow, sleet or shine) — please dress accordingly.

Theory, Values, And Practice In The Legal Lifeworld Of Sociological Jurisprudence: Roscoe Pound’S Views On Professional Women, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The lived social dimensions of Roscoe Pound’s theories of sociological jurisprudence deserve criticism in light of his often progressive worldview and frequent support of civil liberties. Especially important in this regard are his views on women. Despite Sayre’s (1948: 390) assertion that “there is no dualism to Pound,” the archival record reveals internal contradictions. That is to say, Pound’s attitudes toward women were multi-dimensional. His social attitudes-inpractice informed his sociological ideas and thus illustrate the lived conflicts in his professional lifeworld.

Sociological Novels Reviewed In Sociology And Social Research, 1925-1958, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The Bibliographic Record reveals the novel as a distinctive and frequently used format for sociological inquiry and exposition. From 1925 to 1958, the pages of Sociology and Social Research identified and reviewed 140 examples of sociological novels. A bibliography of these novels is provided here, annotated with citations for the reviews in Sociology and Social Research. This “library” of sociological novels is a useful resource for research on American culture, student projects, and (not unimportantly) recreational reading that combines business with pleasure.

Under the editorship of Emory S. Bogardus, Sociology and Social Research routinely opened its pages to reviews …

Sociology And Poetry: An Introduction, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Poetry is a sociological reality. It has an institutional location within society, plays an important part in everyday social interaction, and promises very real results as a site for conceiving and explicating alternative social constellations. Simultaneously, poetry is sometimes difficult to grasp by those of decidedly a prosaic bent, and this includes too many sociologists. As poetry shapes — and is in turn shaped by — the active use of language in our culture on the respective parts of authors, speakers, hearers, readers, etc., the relevance and meaning of poetry can escape the sociological imagination when sociologists frame the social …

A Seven-Minute Sketch Of My Research, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

My central project is to identify, explicate, and better understand the fundamental dimensions, consequences, and possibilities of human embodiment in the social world. This project is multifaceted and is continually evolving. Virtually all of my work contributes directly to this project, including my analyses of archives, biography, “bomb talk,” bureaucracies, doctoral training, environmental art and design, epistemologies, landscapes, libraries, novels, organizations, patriarchy, pedestrians, postcards, research methodologies, scholars, surrogate parenting, terrorism, and — yes — disciplinary history. Methodologies I use include: archival excavation, bibliographic research, case studies, disguised interviews, ethological observation, experiential reflexivity, framing, genealogy, key informants, participant observation, questionnaires, site …

Effects Of Using Visual Design Principles To Group Response Options In Web Surveys, Jolene D. Smyth, Don A. Dillman, Leah M. Christian, Michael J. Stern

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

In this paper, we show that in Web questionnaires verbal and visual languages can be used to create groups and subgroups of information, which influence how respondents process Web questionnaires. Following Schwarz (1996; and also Schwarz, Grayson, & Knäuper, 1998) we argue that respondents act as cooperative communicators who use formal features of the questionnaire to help guide them through the survey conversation. Using data from three Web surveys of random samples of Washington State University undergraduates, we found that when response options are placed in close graphical proximity to each other and separated from other options, respondents perceive visual …

Bio-Bibliography: Stephen James Meredith Brown (1881-1962), Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Stephen James Meredith Brown, S.J., was born in County Down, Ireland, on 24 September 1881. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College and was ordained as a Jesuit in 1914. Brown also pursued studies at Tullabeg, Jersey, Paris, and Hastings. Teaching posts included Clongowes and University College. At the latter, he launched the post-graduate school of librarianship, serving on the faculty for 24 years. Brown founded the Central Catholic Library in 1922 and was its motive force for some four decades. He is remembered today as a major bibliographer of Irish literature.